Pillow Talk
by Luvvycat
Summary: Sometimes, the contents of one's heart can be revealed more easily when lost in the freeing realm of sleep and dreams. A bit of Sparrabeth Valentine's Day fluff, set 2 weeks after the events of "Fate." Suggestiveness and reference to past violent acts. "T


**Pillow Talk  
**by Luvvycat

__

* * *

  
**Author's Note:** Just a bit of Sparrabeth fluff, in honour of Valentine's Day. Suggestiveness, a bit of Jack backstory angst, and a reference to past violent acts inflicted upon same, but no real smut. This story is contiguous to and occurs about two weeks after my previous story, "Fate."

**Disclaimers:** PotC is owned by Disney, not me. My little amateur scribblings are not intended to infringe on any rights held by that venerable institution. Really.

Thank you for reading, and if so moved, please feel free to Review.

Happy Valentine's Day!

-- Cat

* * *

"Jack … Jack …"

The sound of her murmured words—or, rather, the same word … his name … repeated over and over—pulled Jack out of his restful slumber. Abandoning dreams that could not possibly be sweeter than the reality curled snugly beside him, bare silken skin warming his own—the woman he had wanted for so long, now completely his, save for that little corner of her heart in which burned the constant flame of her love for Will Turner—he turned to gaze upon the cherished face of she whose bed he shared. Elizabeth Swann Turner, captain of the good ship _Empress_ and duly elected Pirate King.

She was talking in her sleep … again. His grin sparked gold in the soft lantern light as he raised himself up onto one elbow, his head propped on his hand, watching the play of expressions across that beautiful face kissed by the flickering, amber-hued glow that illuminated the _Empress_' Great Cabin. Jack found no end of amusement in the fact that, even in sleep, she couldn't keep that perfectly luscious mouth still, her voice bouncing and pattering against his eardrum like a gentle _drip, drip _of raindrops in a barrel.

He watched the unblemished brow knit, the graceful twin wings of her elegant eyebrows swooping down over the pert promontory of her patrician nose as her lips moved again. _"Mmmm … Jack …" _

He raised his free hand, the backs of his fingers ghosting down the curve of her face from the angle of her strong jaw to the to apex of her dainty chin, marvelling at the strange confluence of delicacy and strength inherent in those feminine features. He reflected that, in a way, William was indeed fortunate that circumstances prevented Elizabeth from sharing a marital bed with him on the _Flying Dutchman_. How could he have borne it, lying next to the woman he loved, hearing her moan somnolent words of passion to a man other than himself? Knowing that she dreamt of another man? It would most assuredly have driven him to distraction.

No. He doubted that Calypso's Ferryman would be much pleased hearing his wife cry out Jack Sparrow's name in her sleep, night after night … though Jack himself was well-pleased to have that privilege, and to know that he affected her that way.

Her delicate nostrils flared as she drew a deep, tremulous breath.

_"Jack … oh, God … Jack …"_

His grin widened even further. It seemed, as often was the case, she was reliving their most recent bout of lovemaking, the breathlessly fervent tone of her voice leaving no doubt in regard to her heightened level of excitement, or the erotic content of her fevered dreams. Simply hearing her, gasping his name in her sleep as though in ecstasy, never failed to bring him back to a state of arousal as well, his body unable to resist the siren call of her desire.

On those happy occasions, he would gently awaken her with soft, wet, rum-flavoured kisses and tender but evocative touches, until her eyelids at last fluttered open, those honeyed orbs gilded with sleepy lust, and invariably they would resume their concupiscent activities, their bodies fitting effortlessly, perfectly, deliciously together—tenon to mortise, key to lock, rampant tongue to welcoming wet groove, two halves becoming one glorious whole—lips seeking one another's like a compass needle drawn to magnetic north, or the tide responding helplessly to the irresistible pull of the moon.

It had been not quite two weeks now, since she had let him back into her bed, and he was determined to enjoy the current arrangement, and the bounteous gift of Lizzie's tender affections and companionship—and bestow his upon her—for as long as the fates decreed it should last, or until the lady herself grew tired of him and threw him out of her bed (a patent impossibility, as far as he was concerned—after all, he _was _Captain Jack Sparrow!). For he knew how precious these fleeting hours were, and how they _should _be savoured and treasured and lived to their fullest, before they were gone.

He'd had enough life experience under his belt to know, with fatalistic certainty, that good things never lasted. Rum, treasure, and money were eventually (and usually all too quickly) spent, exhausted; the fairest of cerulean-skied weather and calm seas inevitably turned dark, foul and threatening; youth and beauty faded with the accumulated weight of advancing years; trusted friends transformed into bitter enemies, usually with very little warning or provocation.

As a pirate, he also knew what a fragile, and transitory, thing human life was … had seen foes and comrades alike cut down in battle, that gossamer thread of their mortal existence severed in an instant by sword or pistol, or worse … the vital spark there one moment, gone the next like a candle snuffing out.

Like Will's had, on the rain- and blood-soaked deck of the _Flying Dutchman_, an instant after Jack had guided his hand in stabbing Davy Jones' disembodied heart … an act which ensured that the young man's death would not be a permanent state, once that still, brave and noble heart was carved from his fleshly chest and found a new home in the wooden one that Elizabeth now kept safe and close, secreted in the _Empress_' cabin.

And that's why Captain Jack Sparrow had always resolved to live his life as if every hour could be his last, devoured every pleasure that came within his reach like a starving man, grabbed it with both hands (particularly if said pleasure came in the form of some pretty and amply-endowed barmaid) with a passion, a hunger, a boundless enthusiasm, a cocky _joie de vivre _that had helped forge his legend. Dancing with reckless abandon on the edge of the slender knife-blade that separated life and death, and a fierce appetite for all the world could offer him, or that which he could take from it, before that final, fatal misstep that spun him into death's waiting arms …

And the lady in question seemed well-pleased for him to bring that enthusiasm and boundless energy to her bed, every bit as much as he was pleased to be there.

He reached out to sweep back a wayward lock of golden hair from her face, and she murmured his name again on a shuddery exhalation of breath, her lips parting, shining moistly in the muted light. He resisted the temptation to bend and take that mouth with lips and teeth and tongue, though he longed to ravish it just so. Instead, he cupped the side of her face with a feather-light touch, and softly brushed those rose-petal lips with his beringed thumb.

She sighed, and the silken lips moved under his thumb. _"Jack … I love you, Jack …"_

He drew a sharp breath, his eyes widening and his heart swelling at her words, a sweet sublime ache filling it practically to bursting point … words she had never said to him in her waking hours, now spilling freely from her lips in the liberating throes of dreams and sleep.

And he despaired that he would not, _could _not say those words back to her.

Not that he _didn't_ love her … oh, he most certainly did, with an intensity that, frankly, frightened him. But his well-learned reticence—a by-product of a life lived amongst those whose shifting loyalties and nefarious motives precluded the placement of trust—prevented him from abandoning his carefully-built defences and honestly speaking his mind and heart. Even she, whom he loved with said fierceness, had cruelly betrayed him and sent him to his death, by contriving to slip past those defences on the pretext of a passionate kiss. Fool, he, to let her worm her way into his life again—or, rather, for him to worm his way back into hers—but his life had been fraught, he supposed, with even worse acts of foolishness, and, knowing himself, likely would again.

And not that he _couldn't_ say them at all, for he _had _used them over the years, quite frequently and to excellent advantage, in artifice, whilst in the midst of some seduction or other. He had found those words served him quite well when coaxing some shy and hesitant lass into abandoning her clothing along with her virtue for a midnight tryst, or tempting some lonely sailor's or neglected nobleman's wife into succumbing to temptation and sampling the forbidden fruits he offered, or, when his purse was empty but his desire painfully strong, in persuading some Tortuga doxy who had taken a shine to him into waiving her usual fee for the night.

Though it had been weeks ago, he fancied he could still feel the imprint of Scarlett's palm upon his cheek from the slap she had given him upon his confessing this, and other, lies he had told her.

In those cases, it was just another tool in his pirate trickster's arsenal, a phrase with no meaning for him, merely another means of getting what he wanted, a trump card to be played to get a woman to tumble into his arms and into his bed. But when it came to expressing the truest, tenderest feelings of his heart … when the emotions were sincere, and raw, and so very _real _… he found himself incapable of uttering those three essential words. How many times he and Lizzie had danced around the phrase, skirted the truth, coming oh so close, inferring but never quite surrendering that precise triptych of words that would unlock the truth, and forge an unbreakable bond between both their hearts.

Ironic, it was, that, if he loved Elizabeth less, or not at all, the phrase would come glibly, easily, to his lips.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the things he loved tended to be taken away from him, with disconcerting frequency. Though Jack considered himself much more enlightened, and considerably less superstitious than most of his seafaring brethren, nevertheless he was reluctant to tempt the capricious Fates by giving voice to the fact that he had, once again, given his heart. It was tantamount to asking for _this _to be taken from his as well …

He shivered involuntarily as he thought of the day he had been forced to watch as Beckett's men destroyed the soon-to-be-named _Black Pearl_ (then, still the EITC's _Wicked Wench_), raped her and beat her and then set her to the torch—his sleek and lovely enchantress, who could ride the seas as swiftly and gracefully as any airborne witch astride her magickal broomstick, condemned to the stake, the sound of the hot tar seething and steaming and bubbling away between her boards a high-pitched scream of torment borne on the winds of the night.

He had watched with stricken, overflowing eyes as she burned and blackened, ravenous tongues of flame chasing through the stays and licking at her sails until they were fluttering in the inferno's updraft like the fire-limned wings of mythic phoenixes, her masts crackling, cracking, then falling, tall willowy Goliaths struck down by David's killing stone, crashing to her burning decks, sending up a shower of bright sparks into the night sky like falling stars returning to the heavens. His best girl, his dearest love … so beautiful, so achingly beautiful, even in her fiery death throes …

And he had wept for her loss, his eyes burning from the charnel-house pall of smoke that hung in the air, the skies burning with a hellish red glow like a painter's canvas splashed with phosphorescent blood, the seas burning with sheets of reflected fire …

His heart had broken as he watched her die, cruelly consumed by the voracious flames; his voice had broken as he screamed out his anguish at her demise, seeing her slip beneath the water with the vaporous hiss of all the demons of Hell, until nothing was left but a haze of acrid smoke and a cloud of rising steam and little islets of burning debris floating on the surface of the water; his spirit had broken so completely that, later, as he was raped and beaten himself, it hardly mattered anymore to him … lost in delirium and in grief, he had felt nothing, not the wasp's-sting of the whip across his naked back, not the relentless impact of fists and boots and cudgels upon his tortured body as Beckett loosed his men on him, not the feel of Beckett's soft, icy hands on his most intimate parts, nor the searing pain of his ill-prepared violation … though he would bear their lingering artefacts as reminders—in bleeding, in bruises, in scars, in bone-deep soreness that took days to fade …

The brand, though ... he wished he could have remained insensate through that ordeal as well. That, he _had _felt: an excruciating beacon of white-hot agony breaking through his trauma- and self-induced catatonia, shrieking through his nerve endings, as his skin sizzled and blackened under the red-hot iron even as his beloved ship had sizzled and blackened in her final hour, his tortured scream echoing hers … an agonised, keening counterpoint to the manic trill of Beckett's vindictive, self-satisfied laughter …

Later, he had sold his soul to the very devil to get her back, to see her resurrected, restored to her former glory, to be able to feel again her gently rolling decks under his restless feet, to lovingly caress the smooth polished curves of her spoked wheel under his doting hand—_needed _her to feel complete again. He had gone through Hell for her, spent two blissful years as her Captain … only to lose her—not once, but twice, now—to Hector Barbossa.

Yet, as much as he loved his _Pearl_, the day the Kraken attacked, he had been willing to sacrifice even her … his most loving and constant mistress … for the sake of the woman now lying next to him. An old love lost, in order to save a new one.

_She's only a ship, mate …_

What it had cost him to say those words, to make that choice …

And the bitter reward he had earned for his sacrifice …

Betrayed, abandoned, left to die chained to the mast of his beloved ship.

He had come out of the Locker filled with hatred and a thirst for vengeance, his sense of kinship and grudging admiration for the duplicitous Miss Swann's thoroughly piratical act of betrayal and, yes, the burgeoning love he harboured for her, withering to ashen nothingness as days dragged into weeks dragged into months under the harsh, punishing, unrelenting glare and mind-warping, hope-annihilating despair of the Locker. He thought he wanted nothing more than to see her suffer, to bring the scales of justice into balance, to make her pay for her perfidy in the razor-edged coinage of pain, or perhaps the barter of her sweet virgin flesh as recompense for his own suffering.

But he had thoroughly lost his taste for vengeance the night she had seen the shade of her father, drifting past the becalmed _Pearl_ on his way to the Afterlife. That night, she had cried in his arms, her heart breaking from her loss, her copious tears dousing the vengeful fires that burned within him, and watering the dormant seeds of his love for her. As he held her trembling grief-wracked form, he came to realise that he could not bear to see her suffer after all.

The words came from her somnolent lips again, sleep-slurred but no less powerful for all that, breaking through his reverie. _"Love you, Jack…"_

Oh, God … he was well and truly lost, wasn't he? Head over heels, as it were … Bewitched, besotted, bedevilled …

_Damned …_

But also, unbelievably blessed …

And, if he _were _lost, why did he feel, for the first time in his life, that he had come home?

* * * * *

Elizabeth wasn't sure exactly what had awakened her: a movement, a sound, a touch? But, whatever it had been, her consciousness swam sluggishly toward wakefulness, breaking the surface with a sigh of breath and a long, slow, leisurely stretch …

She heard a whisper of sound, and rolled over to see Jack next to her, sprawled on his back, mouth partly open as he lightly snored. His limbs were sprawled as well, splayed and loose in childlike abandon as he slept. The concealing sheet had drifted southward, and was now slung low across his hips, leaving the bronzed, battle-scarred and tattooed expanse of his chest exposed to her appreciative amber gaze.

She let soft affectionate eyes feast on the sharp masculine beauty of him, drifting over him like the phantom touch of delicate fingers tracing that well-loved face and form. Many a morning she would wake before him, and lay there just like this, drinking in the heady sight of Captain Jack Sparrow in her bed—her husband in every sense save for the actual legalities, thanks to Will's magnanimous indulgence in entrusting her happiness to Jack's tender care—until those compelling eyes, as though feeling the weight of her stare, opened and captured hers, drawing her into their dark vortex, and she happily surrendered herself to their pull, let herself drown in those bottomless obsidian pools.

On occasion, grown impatient with waiting for him to waken on his own, she would gently shower his sleeping self with tender caresses and butterfly kisses, letting her hands and lips wander where they may, or—in what he maintained was his favourite of all her methods—boldly slipping her hand beneath the covers to find and fondle that part of him that had already risen ahead of its master to greet the new morning.

Her memory drifted back to the previous daybreak, when she had roused him in just such a way …

_"Are you _up_, Captain Sparrow?" she had whispered in his ear, archly, her cheek nestled on his warm, firm shoulder._

_He'd replied with sleep-roughened suggestiveness and a slow, sexy grin, "As you can well see, luv, by the hard and, if I may say so m'self, quite _substantial _evidence at hand, I am _up _…" His eyes had opened to half-mast as he turned toward her, focused and fixed on her with heavy-lidded sensuality. "The more pertinent and accurate question, I believe, is … am I _awake_…? And, now that I am both awake and … _up _…" he said in a deep, velvety growl that sent shivers of anticipatory delight down her spine, his hand moving under the sheet to curl around and cover hers, "… what are we goin' to _do_ about it?"_

She smiled as she recalled all that had followed yesterday morning … and last night as well, when they had continued the dalliance begun that morning …

She loved spending her days with Jack. During the hours of daylight, he attentively schooled her in the ways of sailing as the _Empress_, thanks to Jack's purloined map, followed in pursuit of Barbossa and the stolen _Black Pearl_. Then, during the night, he tutored her even more thoroughly in the ways of sensual pleasure … a subject in which he proved to be an excellent, and quite astonishingly knowledgeable, teacher. Though that shouldn't really have surprised her. He _was _a pirate, after all, and had had twice her own lifespan so far to amass a wealth of knowledge in that field.

She ran her hand down her own naked, sheet-wrapped body, noted that, even now, hours later, her breasts still seemed to be tender and sore … perhaps even slightly swollen … from the devotion Jack has lavished upon them, most enjoyably, last night. And the fatigue that she had been prone to over the past several days continued to add lead to her limbs, making this former Swann reluctant to leave the feathered nest of her oh-so comfortable bed.

_Just a lazy slugabed, is what I'm turning into …_

But could anyone blame her, when she had such a delightful, loving, playful and inventive—and so very attentive—bed partner to keep her awake at night … sometimes _all _night? A lovely black-eyed Sparrow to share her luxuriant nest, as they embarked night after night on a journey of discovery within the confines of that lace-canopied and linen-strewn vessel of sensual pleasure (though, in truth, they didn't _always _stay within its plush confines, their explorations spilling out to other reaches of the cabin as well). She and Jack had only resumed the physical aspect of their relationship scarcely two weeks ago, and he'd managed to keep her pleasantly exhausted for most of that time.

And, oh, the things she was learning …about what pleased her … about what pleased _him _…

She blushed to think on them!

Her libidinous thoughts were interrupted by a sleep-blurred baritone voice.

_"Lizzie … Lizzie, my love …"_

She smiled to herself. Apparently there was no need to apply any of her various methods to coax Jack to wakefulness this morning. He seemed to have awakened all on his own …

She leaned closer, tucking sleep-tousled hair behind her ear, ready to plant a good-morning kiss upon his bronzed and weathered cheek, before she came to the awareness that he was not _yet _quite awake …

She could see his eyes moving under closed kohl-smudged lids, and he breathed on a sigh, _"Ah … Lizzie. Do that again, luv … Yes … Yes …!"_

A small smile curved her mouth as she realised that Jack was talking in his sleep! She felt a giggle hatching somewhere deep inside her, fluttering in her chest, ready to move up and burst free from her twitching lips, but she managed to suppress it. He had taunted her mercilessly about her own proclivity to vocalise whilst wrapped in the soporific arms of Morpheus. And now, she had been presented with a unique opportunity to turn the tables on him and, God's Wounds, she wouldn't let it pass! How frequently, after all, did the beleaguered canary get a chance to visit retribution on the vainglorious cat? She could … and _would _… give back as good as she had gotten from him.

She was about to poke him into consciousness, eager to start exacting her long-awaited vengeance, when his lips moved again.

_"Lizzie … I love ya, Lizzie … always have … always will …"_

The breath, and the desire to laugh, went out of her in a rush of emotion at the sound of those words. Words she had longed to hear him say, that she was determined to get from him _first _before she would ever say them to him, but those deepest, most emotional parts of him were so well-guarded, she had come to despair of _ever _hearing them. She could understand his reasons for not saying them, but that made her ache no less to hear them …

_"Lizzie … my beautiful Lizzie … love of m'heart …"_

She felt that she was melting into a little pool of happiness, the river of her heart swollen to overflowing by the deluge of joy unleashed by his words, so that the excess runoff manifested itself in a slow leak of moisture from her suddenly swimming eyes …

She lay down next to him, her arms going around him, so very gently so as not to waken him, afraid that those precious and poignant words would evaporate, vanish into nothingness upon his waking.

"Oh, Jack …" she whispered, able to at last speak her heart, knowing he couldn't hear her. "I love you, too!" She pillowed her head on the warm, tanned expanse of his chest, lulled by the steady thrum of his heartbeat under her ear and the soft rise and fall of his breath. "I love you, too …"

Above her head, she didn't see Jack's eyes open, sharp and alive with satisfaction, looking down upon her with affection, with _love _… before he sighed and closed them again. Feeling the warm wetness of tears upon his taut, bronzed skin, he whispered once more the contents of his heart, under the subterfuge of sleep …

_"Love ya, Lizzie … forever … and ever …"_

* * *


End file.
